1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to a system for sewing leg bindings on a garment. More particularly, this invention relates to a garment guiding and aligning apparatus for guiding and aligning a garment, such as a pair of men's briefs, into a dual leg binding attachment apparatus so that both leg bindings may be simultaneously and accurately sewed onto the garment.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The age of automation has revolutionized just about every manufacturing process and operation throughout all industries. The ever-accelerating race for less expensive, better quality, and quickly produced consumer goods is resulting in quantum leaps in the development of automatic and semi-automatic machinery. In the case of apparel and textile industries, especially including manufacturers of undergarment clothing and knit garments, automation has been slow to develop. The delay is mostly due to the availability of high production sew heads that can be operated by low cost manual labor in developing countries. To this day, manufacturing men's briefs utilizes manual labor in just about all steps of production.
For example, to sew the leg binding on a pair of men's briefs, an operator manually loads each so-called "tube fly" (which is the center front part of the garment) into a sew head and then manually sews the binding on either side of the tube fly. This process, even in the case of the most skilled operators, is quite slow. The garments are then stacked and moved to the next operation, which is generally the "flat lock" operation where the garment's crotch area is sewn together.
To speed up this manual leg bind operation, it is also known to use two sew heads in combination to sew both leg bindings on the garment in one manual operation. For example, Rimoldi sells the Gemini class leg binding machine, the right half of which is illustrated in FIG. 11. As shown in FIG. 11, each half of the Gemini class machine includes a sew head 112 which is equipped with known elements such as a leg binding payout device (not shown); a leg binding tension control device 158; a leg binding folder device 342; and a leg binding cut-off device 352. With this conventional machine, the operator manually guides and aligns the brief as the two sew heads sew the respective leg bindings on the garment.
It is quite difficult, however, for the operator to accurately align the garment as both leg bindings are being sewed onto the garment. Therefore, the quality of the finished garment may be compromised with this manually operated machine. Furthermore, this manual process is unacceptably slow and does not yield the high output that today's competitive clothing industry demands. One factor contributing to low output is that the operator must maintain garment alignment throughout the leg binding operation and cannot pick up the next garment until this operation is completed.
Previously, there have been attempts at automating the leg binding operation. For example, Burt '095 (U.S. Pat. No. 5,503,095) discloses an edge binding applying apparatus which utilizes a slidable binding fixture 600 to hold the garment as it is conveyed through a pair of sew heads 202. In Burt '095, the garment must be clamped to the binding fixture 600 using two clamping assemblies 630 and 633. After clamping the men's briefs into the binding fixture, the entire holding fixture 600 is linearly conveyed along track 604 so that the two sew heads 202 can apply bindings to the edges of the leg openings of the brief.
As can be seen from the various drawing figures, Burt's edge binding applying apparatus is quite complicated and includes an articulated holding fixture 600 having a multitude of moving parts, joints and sub-assemblies. Furthermore, Burt's apparatus requires a rather cumbersome clamping procedure in which the pair of men's briefs must be accurately placed and then clamped into the holding fixture 600. Therefore, Burt '095 suffers from an unduly complicated apparatus requiring accurate and cumbersome clamping and alignment of the briefs in the holding fixture 600 before the holding fixture may be linearly conveyed through the pair of sew heads 202. The complexity of Burt's machine inevitably leads to a high rate of mechanical failure which results in costly production downtime. Furthermore, the linkages and moving parts in Burt's machine are susceptible to contamination from lint and dust which further contributes to equipment breakdown, garment misalignment and costly downtime.
As described above, there is a need for an apparatus and method that simultaneously applies both leg bindings on a garment which avoids complicated mechanisms such as Burt '095. More particularly, there is a need for a high output, semi-automated leg binding machine that is not susceptible to contamination or breakdown and which consistently produces a high quality garment.